Tuesday, December 30, 2014

A few odd and sundry items I’ve
been working on while watching Spartacus the last few evenings.

(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version):

This is a female Skythian archer
from RAFM. I started
painting this the first time I thought I’d try and run a Cthulhu Invictus game
back in the summer. Amanda had planned on running a Skythian Horse Archer.

I also happened to have a very similar looking Wargames Foundry
MOUNTED female Skythian horse archer – so I thought I’d paint her up the same
so Amanda would have a mounted version of her figure for when she rode into
battle on her horse (as all Skythian Horse Archers should!)

Luckily, as they depict the same character, they should
never be on the table at the same time… because when standing next to each
other the difference in scale is noticeable!

I don’t know what it is about them… perhaps it’s because I’m
interested in military history… perhaps it’s because it’s easy to set up a plot
train when the characters are part of a military chain of command – “Here is
your mission… go do it!”… Perhaps a bit of both.Oh and (as a miniature wargamer) I’ve always had this
megalomanic dream of running a military role-playing game where the players
would start as grunts and work their way up to being the platoon/section
commanders – at which point the engagements become skirmish wargames - then
maybe after more campaigning they could even take command of companies and/or
become part of a battalion’s staff – and then the combat engagements become
another game entirely (possibly using Blitzkrieg/Cold War/Future War Commander)

I don’t even now how I started
collecting up these things… Actually I do know the Void stuff I originally
picked up from the bargan bin at the Dragon’s
Den and I think I picked up a few odd Imperial Guard in lots off
ebay. I looked into picking up a few more after I gotRogue Trader and even more after picking up Only
War last year. More recently I scrounged up a copy of an old Imperial
Guard codex to see how the guard is theoretically organized – so I could
organize this growing force of Imperial Guard that I seemed to be acquiring.

It’ll be awhile before I ever
get around to running either Rogue Trader or Only War – but I got looking at
these guys again after I picked up a few more Only War books during the annual Fantasy Flight Games
Black Friday/Xmas Sale. I found I had a number of half painted guys (probably
form last winter when I picked up the last batch of books/minis) and decided I
should at least finish them off… then looking at the organization I realized I
was one or two figure from finishing off a platoon – so I finished up a few
more…

(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version):

Assorted Imperial Guard (and
proxies) I painted over the last week.

These are (mostly) old I-Kore
Void Viridian Commandoes (the fellow with the flamer is a Kryomek trooper). As
I mentioned I’d originally picked up a few out of bargain bin for $1/pack – I’d
originally planned to just use them as generic sci-fi military dudes, but then
realized they’d make pretty good proxies at Imperial Guard Catachans. This
particular lot I picked up off ebay to finish off a couple of squads of them
(see the complete squads below)

These are some monks from Black Tree Design
that I tried converting (with some gen-u-ine GW guard bitz) to use as
Ministorium Priests of the Ecclesiarchy (I hope GW doesn’t sue).

Blast! I’m TWO GUYS short of a
(rather understrength) platoon of proxies (the platoon HQ should have two more
guys in it…).

A few of the new guys allowed me
to finish up a complete platoon of Catachan Imperial Guard.

The three older Ogryn I’ve just
finished up look like little kids next to the other newer (but previously painted) Ogryn I have. I guess I’ll call him the Bone’ead of this attached
Abhuman squad. Two of these guys came with goofy helmets with horns(!?) so I added a plastic GW Warhammer Fantasy ogre head to one and the other I just carved off the offending helmet and added a beret made of Green Stuff. Teh head swap looks pretty cool, the beret conversion... well.. it's not my best conversion ever - but it's better than the silly horned helmet!

These are some of the other guys
I just finished that will become part of some other platoon’s command sections
(or something).

I also have a Company Command
section and another attatched abhuman section of Ratling
snipers - which are already painted. I have enough figures to make a
second complete three-infantry-squad all GW Catachan platoon (as the one above)
and another Platoon HQ, an infantry squad, a Heavy Weapons squad (three heavy
bolters), and a smattering of additional light support weapons (flamers, plasma
guns, melta guns snipers, and SIX guys with demolition chargers!?) I’m not sure
what to do with them – perhaps organize them into special weapon squads? I have
a batch of old Rogue Trader Era guardsmen that I thought I could use as a
Veteran Squad. Oh, and a Scout Sentinal Troop….

Oh, and that’s just the Catachans…
(I’ve acquired a smattering of Tallarn and Cadians – about a platoon of each)

(Oh, and then there’s the three
1/48 WW2 KV-2 tanks I picked up – along with a few GW bitz – to convert into a
squad of Guard Ragnarok tanks – anybody remember those from Epic?)

I’m done with these for now
though…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have some Irish Wolfhounds that
I’m just finishing up on the workbench and a few other odd and sundry items.

Stay tuned for that Looking Back
at 2014 post.

We’ve been playing a LOT of
boardgames this past week – perhaps I’ll post about that as well…

I had a thought of hosting a Summer Campaign Weekend… I
won’t be thinking about this too much until Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter
Wargaming Weekend is over. I am of missed feelings about a summer gaming thing.
Part of me feels like “who would want to spend a weekend indoors in the summer
when they could be outside enjoying the weather!?”. On the other hand, it would
be easier to travel in the summer – for friends in other cities…

REGULAR GAMING

Board and Card Games

We’re going to play a LOT of boardgames over the next year…

I was looking at my BGG
Collection - which by the time the dust settles after the seasonal
holiday gift-giving (and BOXING DAY!) I’ll have over 400 games and expansions.
Looking a little further I realized I’ve only played a quarter of those – now,
keep in mind, many of those are small expansions (a single pack of cards added
to a Munchkin game is a separate entry – NINE of those are just Carcasonne
expansions that came with the BIG BOX. Many others are games I played a lot
“back in the day” but simply haven’t played in the last seven or eight years
that I’ve been tracking game plays on The Geek. I have decided that starting
now and before the end of the 2015 I’m going to make sure we play 100 new games
and expansions – so at least half my collection will have plays recorded!
That’s on average about two per week. To kick us off, starting tomorrow, We’re
going to play one new game EVERY DAY until the new year – that’ll knock ten off
the list and get us on our way.

All the boardgames i played over the last year with the kids
was definitely one of the highlights of the year and finding games to tie into
the history we were studying was a stroke of brilliance (If I do say so myself)
– more on all that in the 2014 In Review post coming up in a week or tow - so
I’m really looking forward to playing even more this coming year.

I’ll also still be playtesting Galleys and Galleons! (not
sure if that qualifies as “Skirmish wargaming”..?)

Big Battle Miniature Gaming

I don’t really have time to build any “Big Armies”… I could
bust out some Great War stuff and play Contemptible Little Armies… I have any
number of Hordes of the Things armies or Dark Ages DBA armies that I could get
out… but I haven’t really had the urge to do so lately and I can’t see me doing
that at any point in the immediate future. Nor will I likely be adding to any
of the existing forces at any point in the near future – with the exception of
the Great War miniatures for the Vimy
Project. Perhaps I’ll get in a game of CLA before

The only Big Battle games I could see myself playing a bit
of is Lion
Rampant (which isn't very "Big Battles" as it still has a 1:1 figure ratio... it's just Bigger than all teh other skirmish games I've been playing of late...) and possibly Dux
Bellorum - because I have it and I might be able to get away with
using elements of my DBA Dark Ages armies to play it.

Role-Playing Games

I made a few attempts last year
to get a few Role-playing campaigns going, but most fizzled before they really
got started. This year I’m planning on running a Cthulhu Invictus campaign for
the kids – which should tie neatly into our study of Ancient Rome over the next
few months.

After that…? Painting stuff I already have, mostly. I have a
bunch of medieval units for Lion
Rampant I’d like to paint up. I need to finish up The Third Division
for the Vimy
Project and over 2015 I will need to acquire figures for the 2nd
Division and some Germans (though I may just cast more of my own sculpts) and
get cracking on some terrain!

I may pick up another Ancient
Civilians Collection… and figures for the 2nd Canadian
Division(I think the plan was to
use 1st
Corps, Gripping
Beast/Woodbine, and Irregular
Miniatures… but otherwise I don’t imagine buying much else – I’m sure
the odd thing will come up… but for the most part I HAVE all the miniatures for
all of the games I’m planning on playing this year – I just need to find time
to PAINT the ones that are as yet unpainted!

Well.... That's as much of the plan I have sorted out so far. I'm sure I'll be updating the plan as they year goes by. Stay tuned for the aforementioned 2014 in Review (in a week and a bit) and more game reports and painting updates this week!!

So, I’d been looking at picking
up Mice
and Mystics to play with the kids. Seemed like it was all the rage on
BGG for a bit – near the top of The Hotness list, #96 on the overall Boardgame
Rank… I was kind of back and forth about it…. it’s not inexpensive… I was at
the point of trying to talk myself out of it… I do have a LOT of board games already…
So I thought I’d tell Amanda about it – thinking she’d just say “NO” and that’d
be that – but then SHE (Ms.
“Why-Are-You-Spending-More-Money-On-Games-Don’t-You-Have-Enough-Already?”)
actually said – “Oh, that sounds CUTE, go ahead and get it!”. So then I
actually showed it to the kids and they were a bit interested… after further
discussion it came out that they were lukewarm to the idea of playing humans
turned into mice running through a castle to warn a king or whatever and were
actually mostly just interested in the toys and floor plans which they’d like
to use for “their own games”.

Warrior and Ranger – The Girl
said she like the ranger one and wants to play with it…

Bard, Paladin, and Monk.

I had been considering putting
some static grass on these – but then realized if they’re actually supposed to
be mouse-sized mice grass would actually be taller than them… But then I
figured they could actually be giant-sized (relative to actual mice),
post-apocalyptic, MUTANT mice… (I could use them with Mutants
and Death Ray Guns!?)

It is that time of year again when I get to thinking about
what to do for next year’s Wargaming Birthday Bash Weekend – coming up in
February. With the success of last
year’s skirmish campaign , I thought I’d try something similar again.
This year I am thinking of a Rome-themed weekend (in part because that is what
the kids and I will be studying from early January until March). There
might be a Gladius or two given away as prizes... There may or may not be a
toga party.... or it might just be a weekend long toga party… with miniature
gaming...

Street violence in the ancient Mediterranean – Gangs of
thugs representing one faction or another spilling blood in some Mediterranean
city in the first century BC/BCE (or AD/CE?). I thought I'd use elements of the
campaign system from Song
of Deeds and Glory and maybe even have a map of the city so people
can fight for control of neighborhoods...?

For the first time ever I will
not be supplying forces for all the players – the players will have to bring
their own Roman street gang (or similar faction). I figure this shouldn’t be
too much to ask As with most "Song of" games from Ganesha
Games> they will need a half
dozen figures for an average faction to start with – of course they should
probably plan to bring a half dozen more to add to their faction as it grows
throughout the campaign (providing they don’t lose horribly in every game!). I put
one together relatively inexpensively in less than a week, so…

I will be supplying the 3-5 URBAN game boards we'd need –
that’s a LOT of buildings I have to make between now and then - and possibly a
few of the civilians!!? Depending on the time of day there are civilians
wandering around the table and react to violence in their immediate vicinity -
usually running away - but sometime they JOIN one side or the other! It would
be nice if others could bring along a few appropriate civilians as well…

Another of those old Milton
Bradley big box games reprinted by Eagle Games - I haven't read the rules yet,
but it looks almost identical to Ikusa/Shogun/Samurai Swords – and last
year’s Ikusa game WAS a whole lot of fun!

Another departure from previous years is that I will be holding
this on the long weekend in February (13-15). Usually I like to hold it on (or
at least as close to) my birthday – but a few of the out-of-towners hove
suggested on a few occasions that I should hold it on the long weekend to make
it easier for them to travel. So I thought I’d give that a try. (Of course that
means I have two weeks less to get buildings made!)

Should be fun – hopefully we’ll have a good turn out –
despite my draconian requirements of… y’know… painting your own damned figures…

Saturday, December 20, 2014

I know, I said I was pretty much
done with the Medieval stuff… I has started these before that post and rather
than shuffle them back off to their storage boxes half-painted I decided to quickly
finish them off before forging ahead with new things.

(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version):

Medieval Irish Kerns from Crusader
Miniatures. There was supposed to be eight in the pack, but I only
seem to have gotten seven. I’ll hassle them about it in the new year – perhaps
when I order stuff from them again. North
Star Figures (which distributes
Crusader) decided to move warehouses in the middle of xmas rush season. I
imagine that has caused no end of nightmares – so I just couldn’t go hassling
them right now to send out a single figure they missed when they are likely up
to their necks in orders they need to fill!

I like these figures – as with
most Crusader stuff (maybe some of the WW2 stuff is a bit on the chunky side –
even for me…) – but it’s kind of an odd pack with one in four sculpts being a
dude with his foot on a head… If I were to make units of them – one quarter of
all the units would be resting their foots on beheaded heads… a grisly scene –
to be sure - that would strike fear into the hearts of their enemies… but… I
don’t know… I think it would look weird. As it turns out I won’t be making
entire units with these, I just bought the one pack to mix in with all the
Irish I already have – to give them a bit of variety.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

There’s some Great War figures
on my workbench – some from Great
War Miniatures to finish up the 7th Infantry Brigade –
others are newly arrived from Brigade Games and
will make up the 9th Infantry Brigade. I also have a small handful of
Ancient/Mythical Greeks which I’d like to finish up as they are the only
remaining ones I have to finish up (well… that are individually based… I have
many, MANY more that are to be painted and put together on multi-figure bases
to make armies for DBA/HOTT.

I also have in my hot little
hands the new draft of Galleys and Galleons – so expect another game report of
that in the next few days.

The kids finished up the last of
their activities today so for the next three weeks we got nothing going on but
gamin’ and reading and painting miniatures and maybe watching a few movies…
(and if Amanda has any say about it, I’ll be building a few more bookshelves…).
So there should be plenty of painting updates and game reports in the coming
weeks.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Well I think I painted that
Medieval Bug out… I’m done with those for the time being – but will definitely
be returning to medieval themes come summer. For the next bit I’m going to be
concentrating on getting some Great War units painted, aw well as another
faction and some more buildings for Song
of Shadows and Dust - and perhaps a few other odd and sundry items…

I’ve painted them with battle patches of the 7th
Infantry Brigade, CEF, which all my other Great
War Miniatures are part of, though it’s occurred to me that I have no
casualty figures fromBrigade Gamesand Renegade
Miniatures - which make up the 9th and 8th
Infantry Brigades, respectively (the other Brigades in the 3rd
Division)…

Perhaps these will be used through out the division. In that case
I might need MORE!

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

I FINALLY got in a game of Galleys & Galleons this
afternoon – a new game under development from Nic
Wright and Ganesha
Games. (Sorry Nic)!! Hopefully now that I’ve got it on the table and
played a game (and all the kids activities are wrapping up for the year!) I
should be able to get in a bunch more games over the Holidaze!

Tuesday afternoons we usually
play some board games with some other homeschoolificators – but this week I
decided to introduce the two that were able to make it this week to miniature
gaming! So, while my kids have played lots of miniature games (and a lot of
Ganesha Games) , two of the players, not only had no experience with the
Ganesha Games/Song of Rules, They had never even played a miniatures game
before – so this would be a real test of the system! As it turned out everyone,
more or less, picked it up straight away and we were all off sailing, as it
were.

SITUATION

The crew of the Red Snapper
heard tell of a Spanish merchant ship, heavily laden with New World Gold would
soon be heading home to Europe – enlisting the aid of the Snow – an English
privateer – they endeavored to take the Merchantman down and share out the
booty. The laid in wait, in the lee of some smallish islands in the carribean
await the Spanish gold ship to lumber past on it’s way out into the open sea.

SCENARIO

Pirates and privateers set up
within one medium of the east end of the table. Their objective was to take the
Merchantman intact – gold’s no good at the bottom of the sea.

Spanish Gold ship and escort set
up within one medium of the West table edge. Their objective was for the
Merchantman to safely make it off the east edge of the table.

Wind started out of the north.

FORCES

Pirates

The Red Snapper – Brig

The Snow – Brig

Spanish

Harfleur – Indiaman

Rapier – Brig

Maybe those aren’t the most Spanish
sounding names… I just used those because those were the names I had on the ships
from the last time we used them…

THE GAME

To start off I noticed the
battery on my camera was noe low and as I have not yet figured out what Amanda
did with the other one I tried to take only a few picture hoping it might last
at least until the end of the game… So a lot of these were hastily taken –
without properly waiting for the canera to focus… sorry…

(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)

Initial setup from the North
East. On the bottom left of the picture are the Pirates. On the top right are
the Spaniards

TURN ONE

Everyone went straight ahead.

Spaniards lumber forward.

The Pirates sail towards their
quarry.

TURN TWO

The Harfleur, seeing the pirates
rushing towards them thorugh the gap between the islands turned to skirt around
the north end of the Islands. The Red Snapper saw this maneuver and began
turning about. The Snow also made to come about.

TURN THREE

The Rapier darted forward
betweent eh Islands and fired upon the Red Snapper and extreme range – shots
all falling very short.

The Harfleur slowed as it turned
into the wind a bit.

The Red Snapper, coming about,
strayed into the shallows around the island, but safely navigated their way
around any rocks there might have been there.

The Snow rolled two failures – a
double One which shifted the wind direction.

TURN FOUR

The Rapier ALSO rolled two
failures - with a double one – shifting the wind a bit more. I think the change
in wind made the Harfleur pick up speed and it almost sailed off the table edge
– not being able to maneuver (as the Rapier had rolled a turn-over before it
could activate and change course!)

The Red Snapper also picked up
speed and so it went tearing through the shallows by the island and sustained
TWO DAMAGE due to hitting rocks and whatnot.

The Snow turned.

TURN FIVE

The Rapier fired on the snow –
hits, but with no appreciable affect.

The Harfleur did some fancy
maneuvering – trying to find that fine line between not going too fast and
sailing off the table edge and not sailing into the shallows too close to the
island…

The Red Snapper decided to try
and repair some damage, but in the process failed to slow the speed of their
ship and sustained MORE damage on rocks in the shallows!?

The Snow returned fire on the
Rapier – which was equally ineffective and then sailed on past – trying to sail
about the island and give chase to the Harfleur.

TURN SIX

The Harfleur… a merchantman…
fired it’s bow chasers… at the Red Snapper at the very end of a second long
stick… causing no damage at all (surprising no one…).

The Rapier started to come
about.

The Red Snapper scored a success
and a failure – but not JUST a failure – rolled a one on a coloured die and had
to make an “All At Sea” roll – which in the end made her fire on the Harfleur –
which she’d been planning to do anyway! No effect.

Snow still desperately trying it
give chase.

TURN SEVEN

The Harfleur turned a bit with
it’s single action – the two fouble fail rolls turned the wind even further.

The Rapier could only said
straight ahead – not being able to activate.

The Snapper rolled another two
fails – including another one on a coloured die – the result was that they were
to strike their colours and surrender. We figured it was more likely that
they’d just sail on by and make for cover hoping the Indiaman made a run for it
out to sea and not stick around to rake them up the stern!

Given the speed of the Snapper –
it would likely have sailed off the table edge that turn anyway.

So the only actual damage done to any ships was due to hitting rocks or reefs in the shallows around the Island... Well, we got to practice moving the little ships about... and we've pretty much got that down. NEXT game we'll get down to some serious gunnery and boarding actions.

I like the game so far.
Definitely looking forward to having another go. It definitely has the right
feel for a naval game in the age of sail – but still has the uncomplicated,
streamlined, fast-play of other Ganesha products.

I think the only real problems
were caused by my placement of the islands in the middle of the table – which
turned out to be just way too big for such a small table and made it hard to
ships to maneuver around them without accidentally sailing off the edge of the
table. Probably tried too ambitious a scenario for the first time around –
should have just had some open sea and said, “there they are, go sink ‘em!”

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Well now that the kids have had a taste of that salty sea
air we’ll be have a few more game reports to post! Ya-HARRRR!

These were not part of the Lion
Rampant Army Deal I recently ordered – though they were ordered at the same
time. The nice thing about the army deal was that you got exactly the number
you need for the units. The Crusader infantry generally come in sets of eight –
which isnt’s upper helpful if you’re trying to make units of 6 or 12 (unless
you want two units – then three packs will do you fine). Luckily there’s a four
man Infantry command pack that I purchased along with a pack of Foot Sergeants
with Spears to make 12 (thougha whole third of the unit then doesn’t actually
have spears… Ah, well… lovely figures though.

When I form them into Shiltron
I’ll just tuck those non-spear-armed guys into the second rank to hide… and
maybe remove them as the first casualties…? Well, at least that horn-blower lad
can be first to go!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Game reports. Someday…?

Next – painting wise – will probably be some
Great War stuff – some of which is already done but I thought I’d save for when
I’ve finished up a bit more (enough that I can put it all together into one
post). I’ll probably also forge ahead with a few more Mediaeval types… some
Expert Serageants (with halberds, etc) for the green/yellow opposing force
and/or some more mounted…

I had an extremely productive
day yesterday and almost have another unit completed for Lion
Rampant. This unit happens to have a standard bearer. It’s been a
good long time since I last made a flag – and an even longer time since I did a
How-To/Painting Tutorial post (and they always seem to be popular… and the flag
I was planning seemed like a quick and simple enough one… so here it is – this
is how I make flags. It’s not the only way… I’m not even suggesting it’s the
best way… it’s just the way I do it. Take what you will from it, discard the
rest.

(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)

Unit very nearly finished on the
workbench.

There he is, the standard bearer
himself.

I use standard quarter inch
ruled graph paper from a pad. I use the pad stuff (ass opposed to stuff from a
graph notebook or loose pages) because on the pads the lines are only printed
on one side! The lines are dark enough to bee seen through to the other side –
to easily use as guidelines – but not dark enough that they will be seen
through paint when the painting is done on the back (non-lined) side.

First I measure or just set the
figure down on the page to see approximately how big of a flag I’m going to be
able to make. Looks like I can do an 1 ¼ inch flage here.

Outline on reverse

Leave a quarter inch gap between
the two flag field faces for wrapping around the pole – probably more than is
necessary for most things you’d use as a pole – but better to have too much
than not enough.

Here is where I would mark out
geometric shapes – but this is a very simple flag I’m working on today – one
colour with a devise in the top corner or maybe center. I hadn’t really decided
as I was starting. Perhaps it would have been better to do this when I was
making flags for some Seven years War or Napoleonic troops with more
interesting/elaborate standards… but I’m not painting those today. Perhaps I’ll
do another some day when I get back to those periods…?

Using the lines I can see
through as a guideline I paint some brown rectangles down the center – this it
to make it look like there are bands of fabric wrapped around the pole

Dark red as background to the
main field. The red I use is Decoart Americana Napa Red – it’s fairly
translucent – which is okay when painting over a black primed figure, but
painting on white paper it’s going to need two coats.

Second coat. probably could have done with a third... but I am lazy...

Yes I paint way
outside the lines on the outer edges that will be cut – it doesn’t matter –
it’s going to be cut off and better to overshoot those lines than be a shade
short and have white bits showing on the coloured field when you’ve cut it out!

Next I did the outline of the
device in black.I kind of just
eyeball it and paint it freehand – other than RIGHT NOW, no one is ever going
to see both sides of the flag at once and so won’t be able to tell if it
doesn’t line up just perfectly. Also if it does look a little wonky it doesn’t
really matter as when I bend it to make it look like it’s flapping in the wind
- everything will get visually distorted anyway. I’m going for a “general
effect” – so that when someone looks at it on the tabletop they will be able to
recognize that it is a flag and be able to tell which side it is on and maybe
be able to quickly make out a few details to tell which unit it is (especially
if in an army with uniforms that are otherwise not easy to tell apart)

Then on top of that the base
colour for the device.

Then highlight colours for field
and device. I have just painted sections one colour - but I prefer to do it with a deeper background colour and a highlight colour as I find it gives the finished flag a bit more movement and dynamism.

This is, more or less, the same process I use for painting shields - only on a slightly grander scale.

Once it’s all dry I cut it out –
usually using the lines on the other side to determine where to cut (as I
coloured outside the lines on the other side!). Usually I'm holding it up to let some light shine through so I can see where I painted on the other side.

This was exceptionally hard to
take a picture of as normally I am using two hands to do this – one to hold the
paper, the other holding the scissors… I ended up having to prop it on the edge
of the table and take the picture holding the camera in my left hand – and
trying to hold is super steady as the lighting in the basement was not exactly
ideal and the shutter speed was about 1/25 or 1/30!? I had a similar problem a
few of the next few shots as well – normally I’d be holding the miniature with
one hand, painting (or whatever) with the other… but hopefully you get the idea
of what is going on here.

All cut out and ready to be
mounted on the figure!

Slather one side with white glue
or acrylic gel. I prefer the gel, but I've used both.

Carefully wrap around making
sure all corners match up - and wiping off any excess glue or gel that squishes out the sides (this is where a matte acrylic gel makes things easier - you can just use a brush and spread it over the flag). I also kind of pinch the flag together at the pole
so it wraps tightly around at the pole.

Once that is done, shape the
flag to look like it’s flapping in the wind!

Once it’s dry I have a good look
at it and if there’s areas where the two sides of the paper didn’t match up
quite right I carefully trim it with some smallish scissors – this one happened
to turn out pretty good so I didn’t have to try and take any pictures of that
maneuver which surely would have exploded my brain!?

NO matter how tightly you press
the two sides together there is always going to be a bit of white showing at
the edges…

…so I just touch up the edges
with whichever field colour is appropriate – luckily here the entire banner is
one colour so there was no delicate fiddling involved. I don’t leave a huge
bead of paint on the flag – like the one you can see in the picture above –
that was subsequently spread smooth on the flag. I also, at this point, touch
up any of the highlight colours to make them brighter in parts that are on th outer
sides of the folds – if necessary.

Once it’s good an thoroughly dry
I give it a coat of the same brush on varnish I paint on the figures.

And we have a finished standard
bearer.

Well I hope this has inspiring for
at least some of you out there. Do please let me know if you find this sort of
post useful – they’re fun to do – but time consuming (and time isn’t something
I often find myself having a surplus of!). If you have any questions - fire away in the comment section below!

I will try to do this again sometime
when I have a more complex or elaborate flag to do.